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Pope Leo XIV proclaimed a 15-year-old computer genius the Catholic Church’s first millennial saint, along with another popular Italian figure who spent his life spreading his faith before dying at a young age.
Leo canonized Carlo Acutis, who died of Leukemia in 2006, and Italian student and avid outdoorsman Pier Giorgio Frassati, who died in his early 20s of polio in 1925, during an open-air Mass in St. Peter’s Square before an estimated 80,000 people.
Leo said both saints created “masterpieces” out of their lives by dedicating them to God.
“The greatest risk in life is to waste it outside of God’s plan,” Leo said in his Sunday homily. The new saints “are an invitation to all of us, especially young people, not to squander our lives, but to direct them upwards and make them masterpieces.”
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Pope Leo XIV arrives for the canonization Mass of Carlo Acutis and Pier Giorgio Frassati in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican Sunday, Sept. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
Acutis was born on May 3, 1991, and earned the nickname “God’s Influencer” after creating a multilingual website documenting so-called Eucharistic miracles recognized by the church. The teen finished the site at a time when such projects were typically in the realm of professionals.
Pilgrims arrive for the canonization Mass of Carlo Acutis and Pier Giorgio Frassati in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican Sunday, Sept. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
In October 2006, Acutis fell ill and was diagnosed with acute leukemia. He died within days at just 15 years old. He was entombed in Assisi.
Pope Francis fervently willed the Acutis sainthood case forward — convinced that the church needed someone like him to attract young Catholics to the faith while addressing the promises and perils of the digital age.
A view of the canonization Mass celebrated by Pope Leo XIV of Carlo Acutis and Pier Giorgio Frassati in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican Sunday, Sept. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
Leo inherited the Acutis cause, but he, too, has pointed to technology — especially artificial intelligence — as one of the main challenges facing humanity.
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Frassati, the other saint canonized, was a “beacon for lay spirituality,” Leo said.
Frassati lived his faith through “constant, humble, mostly hidden service to the poorest of Turin,” noted the Frassati Catholic Academy. “He lived simply and gave away food, money or anything that anyone asked of him.”
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It is believed that he contracted polio from those he ministered to in the slums of Turin, Italy, before his death.
Fox News Digital’s Ashley J. DiMella and the Associated Press contributed to this report.